Let the nature point contest begin!

So the next morning we said "adios" to San Jose, all a little pleased to be moving on and excited to see what our next detination would be like. The journey was long, as Tortuguero is remote and can only be reached by boat. It´s Costa Rica´s only marine national park and famous for being the nesting ground of green and hornbilled turtles. We were going at the start of the green turtle nesting season so hopeful we might be in luck to see some.

The first part of the journey went well, with our favourite taxi driver Jose Antonio taking us as far as Caliari. There we had to change into a 4x4 and drive for an hour along a bumpy track. At the end we reach La Pavona, esentially a big hut with a cafe and full of lots of people either waiting for a boat to Tortuguero or a bus back. We had played down the boat trip to mum who was nervous about all forms of water travel, but couldn´t hide it any longer when we were told that it was about 40 minutes along the river and then 30 minutes across a lake. We distracted her with a big plate of "tipico" rice and pork and then waited to see what the boat would look like!

Turns out that mum is more adventurous that we thought - and quick to forget her fears when confronted with a variety of birds to spot and crocs to gawp at! Only 5 minutes into the river trip and she had her laminated spotter chart out and, with Guy, were identifying the brightly coloured birds and butterflies that were flying passed. The sight of a crocodile wading into the shallows added to excitement and we hadn´t even reached Tortuguero yet! Nature points were starting to be won and the competitive streaks in us all were waking up!

Our lodge, run by a Canadian marine biologist called Daryl, was lovely. Simple but immaculately clean with a great pier where we could sit with a couple of beers watching the marine traffic and the birds and wildlife. As fast as you could say "turtle" the binoculars were out and dad had already spotted (and named) Iggy the iguana. Tortuguero itself is a small town that runs along a single dusty path, with no cars (bliss) and lots of friendly Costa Ricans. We split up and went for a wander, quickly realising that on the other side of the dusty track was the Caribbean ocean. It didn´t take long for us to have the same thought and we met up by chance (!) on the white sand beach, each carrying a six pack of Bavarian beers! Not a bad way to end the day with a can of beer watching the sun go down.

The next morning we had booked in to take Daryl´s tour of the Tortuguero National Park which left (after a strong cup of black coffee) at 5.30am to try and beat the big boats of tourists from the local "posh" lodges. As a marine biologist who´d lived there for 14 years, he knew the area well and was sensitive to the local wildlife, meaning that he used a quiet electric boat rather than the noisy and disruptive petrol engines. He also was a mine of information and responded well to all our questions! The god of small furry animals must have been looking favourably on us, as we saw so much in those 3 hours: howler monkeys, cappuchin monkeys, spider monkeys, toucans, parrots, an otter (ahem, spotted by me!), a caiman (ok, that was spotted by Guy), woodpeckers, snake birds, tiger herons, green herons, blue herons...basically lots of herons! It was amazing and we didn´t know which way to look. Mum had said goodbye long ago to her fear of boats and, between looks in the binoculars, was busily scribbling down everything we saw. We came back from the trip on a real high.

That afternoon, we split off again and mum and dad took a guided walk through the national park with the local forest guide while Guy and I wandered up the beach before borrowing Daryl´s canoe and heading back into the estuaries of the Tortuguero national park. Apart from the total freedom of paddling off in the canoe, we realised how much closer we could get to the wildlife. In fact, we´d only gone a little way up stream and got to watch a troupe of spider monkeys who seemed to have adopted a cappuchin monkey. It was only when we looked at our pictures weeks later did we realise that the cappuchin had been injured, maybe by it´s own troupe. Back at base, we compared nature points. Mum and dad had befriended their guide and brought him back, half-cut on white rum. He was fascinating though, in a rather stoned way, and told us some great facts about ants! They had also witnessed another rare monkey scene on their walk but you´ll have to check out Guy´s blog for more details on that! http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/prime-meridian. That night we headed off to the Buddha Cafe for a pizza by the water, not very authentic but very tasty!

Impressed by the canoe stories, the next morning at 6am dad and Guy headed out in the canoe, while mum and I whistled the music from Hawaii 5-0! We much prefered to spend the morning chilling out, chatting and writing postcards on the water´s edge. Turns out that no sooner had he gone out of sight, then dad took off the life jacket he had promised mum he´d wear, only to wrestle it back on again as they came back into view. But you can always count on your daughter to drop you in it over breakfast! We spent the rest of the day sniffing round the gift shops and taking a long leisurely walk up the beach, before crashing the smart bar at one of the posh lodges up river and ordering 4 nicely chilled beers! Our final night was softened with some white rum dad had purchased in the souvenir shop and a tasty (if a long time coming) meal of coconut fish and plantain.

The next morning, Guy and I went out for one final fling in the canoe to try and get some arty animal snaps. Check out the results at www.gallery.me.com/guypattison. We then said our goodbyes to Tortuguero and got ready for the next leg of our Costa Rican adventure in La Fortuna.

So where, I hear you ask, were these famous turtles? Well, it turned out that despite being traditional nesting season for the green turtles, only 2 pairs had been seen all month. They have a very precise habit of nesting every 9 days and for the time we were there, we were told there would be little or no chance of seeing them. We had to cut our losses and accept that we wouldn´t see one. Instead we could console ourselves with the huge amount of nature we had seen...and there was more to come!